Disney Layoffs: Company Warns Legal Division Will Be a 'Much Smaller Organisation' Before Posting an AI Role

Disney layoffs are under renewed scrutiny after the company's top legal executive warned staff on 18 September that Legal & Global Affairs will shrink. Six days later, Disney posted a Director, AI Enablement & Legal Engineering role focused on redesigning legal workflows with artificial intelligence and automation. The timing does not prove AI is replacing specific jobs, but it shows staffing cuts and technology investment moving forward within the same division.

Horacio Gutierrez, Disney's senior executive vice president and chief legal and global affairs officer, told Legal & Global Affairs staff that 'LGA will be a much smaller organization than it is today'. He also said some employees would be affected. The memo did not specify how many positions would be eliminated or when the reductions would take place.

Disney Layoffs Put Legal Team Under Pressure

Gutierrez described the changes as part of a broader transformation of Legal & Global Affairs, or LGA. The division includes legal, government relations, operations and other functions and has fewer than 1,000 employees worldwide, according to Deadline, which first reported the memo.

He said the review would consider automation, self-service models, alternative legal providers, shared services and outsourcing. The memo also said Disney would consider 'automating certain workflows by leveraging the latest technologies.'

Gutierrez said he was 'taking a dispassionate look at every aspect of how we do our work.' However, neither the memo nor Disney's later job advertisement said artificial intelligence would directly replace particular lawyers, paralegals or other LGA employees.

Disney's job listing gives a clearer picture of the technology work being funded within the division. The Director, AI Enablement & Legal Engineering position was posted on 24 September for Burbank, California, or New York City.

Disney says the role will work with attorneys, business teams and technologists to redesign legal workflows. Responsibilities include AI-enabled process engineering, workflow modernisation and automation, as well as developing tools for contract review, legal research, regulatory analysis and compliance work.

The director will also help make build-versus-buy decisions involving legal technology platforms and specialised providers. Disney says the position will track the return on investment from AI use.

That overlap is what makes the timing notable. It does not establish that the new role is linked to particular redundancies, and Disney has not publicly identified which LGA positions will disappear.

Disney Layoffs Continue Alongside Technology Investment

The LGA changes form part of Disney's broader effort to control costs while directing money towards areas it considers important for growth. In its 5 August fiscal third-quarter shareholder update, Disney said it was evaluating 'reductions in labor and SG&A' to create additional capacity for investment.

Disney has already carried out several rounds of workforce reductions. About 8,000 jobs were eliminated after Bob Iger returned as chief executive in late 2022. Another round of roughly 1,000 cuts began in April 2026, followed by several hundred more in July.

Some earlier reductions were connected to the consolidation of marketing functions. The Wall Street Journal reported that the marketing reorganisation was internally called Project Imagine, while Reuters reported that many of the April cuts were expected to affect marketing. Project Imagine should therefore not be treated as the name of Disney's entire restructuring programme.

Josh D'Amaro became chief executive of The Walt Disney Company on 18 March 2026. In his first staff memo as CEO, he said Disney would embrace technology and operate as 'One Disney'.

The company reinforced that direction on 18 September by naming Karandeep Anand as its first company-wide chief technology officer. Anand, previously chief executive of Character.AI, is due to begin on 2 October and will report directly to D'Amaro.

Chief Financial Officer Hugh Johnston gave similar context during Disney's 6 May fiscal second-quarter earnings call. He said the company was 'using technology to fundamentally change how work gets done' while simplifying operations and investing in growth.

For Legal & Global Affairs staff, the unanswered questions remain the most important ones. Disney has not said how many jobs will disappear, which roles will be affected or how directly automation will influence those decisions.